CEDAR KNOCKS ON Calla’s door before the sun rises. Calla rubs the sleep from her eyes but grins when Cedar holds up a blanket and a paper bag of scavenged leftovers from the kitchen. They have gone out before for picnics under the stars, but Calla does not object to greeting the sun. The two move quietly down the hall to the exit.
Calla lays out the blanket while Cedar unwraps the food. Calla flashes a bright smile at her, but Cedar knows her friend well enough to recognize the worry in her eyes. Calla turns her body to face the eastern sunrise. Cedar sits beside her, unsure of how to begin.
Calla speaks first. “Lily is dying.”
“I know.” Cedar wants to pour out her plan to Calla, to give her some hope to cling to, but there are too many unknowns. There is so much to share, and some to hold back.
“I am leaving tomorrow evening,” Cedar says.
“What?”
Cedar winces, feeling the full weight of abandoning Calla at this time.
“I am running out of time, I need to go.”
“I knew you wouldn’t stay, but why now? If not for me, then for Lily.”
“I can’t explain it, not yet. But I need to try something before it is too late,” Cedar says.
Again silence descends. She can feel the anger radiate off of Calla.
Finally, Calla speaks. “We all have our secrets, you do not need to share yours with me. But I will miss you. Lily will miss you too.” Calla’s voice is resigned, long used to loss and the devastation it leaves.
“I want to tell you. If all goes well, you will know soon enough, I hope.” Cedar says. Calla reaches for her hand. Cedar squeezes Calla’s hand in gratitude.
“I saw Finch. He gave me this for you.” Cedar pulls her hand from Calla’s grasp to give her the letter from her pocket.
Calla takes it, her eyes fixed on the folded papers.
“I have never seen such a thick letter,” Cedar remarks.
Calla opens the folded papers, though it is not yet light enough to read his compact writing.
Calla laughs. “I forget how little he says in person. We have exchanged letters for so long, I think of him as always having so much to say. We have not been together for longer than a day since we were kids.”
“I do not know him well, but I owe him more than I could repay,” Cedar says.
Calla nods, reverently holding the letter in front of her.
“He is going with me tomorrow,” Cedar says. “He wants to see you.”
“I will be there,” Calla whispers.
Cedar had meant it as a consolation. She realizes that when it is over, Calla will have had to say goodbye to two of the three people she has come to care for the most while hanging on for as long as she can to the third.
~ . ~ . ~
CEDAR’S FINAL MORNING at the hospital is chaos. Every bed is full. Sister Abigail sends Cedar running through the monastery to collect bedding for new patients. A flu is spreading through the hospital, and Cedar is called from room to room to help with cleaning up patients and washing sheets. On one mad dash through the hall, Cedar knocks over a meal cart.
Lily is restless and feverish, her eyes unfocused in her pale face. Calla’s usual cheer is disturbed as she anxiously moves from duty to duty, taking every spare moment to be by Lily’s bedside.
Near the end of the day, Cedar comes to see the young girl. Lily’s face lights up at her approach. Guilt clenches in Cedar’s stomach.
Lily reaches for her hand. Her voice is weak, but she manages to speak. “The story, I want to know how it ends, before…”
Cedar has wrestled all morning with what to say to Lily, and still she is at a loss. She wants to console her, to tell her things will be all right. But she promised herself not to lie, knowing she would not want to hear such platitudes were she in Lily’s place. As it is, Cedar cannot promise even to finish the story. There are too many unknowns.
She pulls the book from where it hides beneath her robes and tucks it under Lily’s pillow. Lily intuits the meaning behind the gesture.
“I don’t want to read it without you.” Lily’s eyes fill with tears.
“I will find another copy, and read it also. In a way then, we will read it together. Some things can stretch across time and space,” Cedar says.
Lily frowns. “Do you think so? Like our souls meeting? I’ve often wished things like that were real.”
“Some things become more real by believing them,” Cedar says. She is not sure where these ideas have come from, or if she even believes them, but she wants to. Is saying such things a lie if she wants to believe they are true?
Lily’s face glows. “Then we do not need to say goodbye.”
Cedar stays with Lily until she falls back asleep. A smile softens the girl’s ravaged features.
When Calla appears, Cedar rises from her seat.
Calla slips a folded paper into Cedar’s pocket. She knows without looking that it is for Finch. Calla embraces her tightly. “I cannot come tonight.”
Cedar returns the intensity of her embrace, knowing what it costs Calla to stay. She does not know when she will see Calla again.
~ . ~ . ~
CEDAR STOPS BY her room to pick up the long suitcase. It contains the cello and what clothing she had placed around it. She folds her postulant’s habit and places it on the bed. The nuns and postulants are all at the chapel for evening prayers, and the halls are silent as she walks toward a side door that leads out of the monastery.
She meets Finch at their agreed-upon place. He glances behind her. She gives her head a shake. “Lily is too ill.”
Concern replaces disappointment, but he simply nods. He reaches for her suitcase.
“Thank you, but I’ll carry it myself. I will need to learn how to maneuver it if it is to go all the way to Sapphire City with me.”
Finch has had enough top-secret assignments to pay no attention to his own inquisitiveness. She hands him the letter instead. He pockets it after a single longing glance. He shoulders his heavy pack.
They dash from tree cluster to tree cluster, careful to scout ahead. She tries to picture how Finch has been living and hopes he is not constantly on the move and sleeping on the ground.
It is dark by the time they reach the town, where Cedar feels the heaviness she last experienced when they passed through the depressing place.
When they reach the riverbank, Finch moves a boat out from under a pile of garbage that had been covering the sorry-looking vessel. Cedar has seen enough worn watercraft to know this one is at least water worthy. She helps Finch maneuver the boat into the water and places the cello case in the middle. Finch adds his gear, and they climb aboard.
They speak only when necessary. Cedar takes no offense at Finch’s silence, even once they move on from the populated riverbanks into the quieter countryside.
Several hours later, they make camp.
A chill in the air reminds Cedar of the winter that will come soon. They will move closer to the threat of winter each day of paddling their northwestern route to the midlands forest.
They sit near a fire.
Finch is talkative in the early hours of this dark morning.
“What will you do about Ash? He cares about you,” he says.
“What will you do about Calla?”
“Fair enough.”
Cedar sighs. “It is hard to plan for a future.”
Finch watches her, saying nothing.
“I think we would both be happily sheltered away somewhere with the ones we love if it could be so simple as that,” Cedar says.
“Sometimes simple things, even as simple as knowing we love someone, become complicated when surrounded by less difficulty,” Finch says.
Cedar thinks back to the cabin and her time there with Ash. She remembers how reluctant she had been to let Ash come close to her heart. These memories strike her as the actions of another person.
“If we cannot manage simple things, how will we manage the difficult ones?”
Finch rarely wastes a movement. He is as still in deep thought as he is efficient in movement. It is so different from the way Cedar’s body cries out to express her thoughts, her fingers nearly always imagining the strings of a cello beneath them.
“The same way we ought to manage the simple ones,” he finally says.
Has she ever managed the simple things well? Yet, hope is a hard thing to extinguish when the thing you hope for is so desirable.
“Then I guess I’d better get good at the simple things.”
Finch smiles. Cedar is struck by his expression, containing all the assurance of the fulfillment of his longings, and some secret delight besides.
She trusts this man.
“What do you know about King Marcus?” she says.
He frowns, in his minimally expressive way.
“He believes completely in the utopia he has created in his mind, and will stop at nothing to see it come to reality.”
“But what does the destruction of music have to do with his utopia?”
“My grandmother played the flute. She was one of the abducted musicians when they came, more than 15 years ago now. She told me, when we first heard rumours of the ordinances, to always remember that music had power.” He looks over to her. “Maybe even enough power to contest the might and will of a king.”
Cedar exhales her held breath. “If you wanted to do something, but it might draw the attention of King Marcus, would you do it?”
Finch does not take his eyes off her. “I’d make damn sure I believed in it enough to suffer for it.”
Taking a lighter tone, Cedar says, “It’s probably a naïve thought, but how has he not been assassinated?”
Finch smiles. “It’s a mystery. A prophecy from early in his life says his life will be ended by a great bear. Maybe most would-be assassins also believe it.”
This catches Cedar’s attention. Samuel had been tasked with eradicating bears. Before she can share this, Finch rises, and heads for his sleeping bag.
“We can travel the next miles in the daylight. We’ll leave in a few hours.” He lays out his sleeping bag on one side of the fire.
Cedar rises to lay out her bag for their first of several nights under the open sky.
Time takes on a different meaning when sleeping under the sky, and spending endless hours paddling past open fields and thick uninhabited trees. The things that matter most take on a startling clarity, and Cedar’s plan continues to evolve.
The miles get behind them with increasing rapidity, even though they are paddling upstream. They come near to where the river breaks off from a larger one. Finch and Cedar hide the canoe in the bush and set out to cover the remaining distance by foot. The cooling nights remind her that it has been nearly a year since she left her northern mountains.
After days of hiking, they break through the trees to see the reflection of moonlight dancing in the flowing water of the large, familiar river near the cabin. She feels like she has come home. Absorbed by the sight, she watches the water.
When she turns to where Finch had been standing beside her, he is gone.
~ . ~ . ~
CEDAR CROUCHES IN the bushes. She hesitates to call out. There are any number of reasons Finch may have slipped away. As she strains to peer through the dense brush, an iron grip wraps around her arm.
She turns against the strength of the hold to see a tall, well-built woman who holds herself like a warrior. Camouflage fabric is wrapped around her head. Fierce, dark eyes motion to the knife in the hand that is not holding her arm.
Cedar rises, and the woman drops her hold on her arm. Cedar picks up the oversized cello case. Would it be better to leave it, than to be caught with it and have it investigated? When she sees the warrior look at the case, Cedar tightens her grip. She takes a step in the direction the woman points.
“If you’re thinking of calling out for your friend, think again.”
Cedar’s eyes flash. “What did you do to him?”
“Merely distracted him. But if you make too much noise, you’ll get more attention than either of us wants.”
Cedar goes silently with this knife-wielding warrior woman.
They walk deeper into the forest, winding along paths until they reach a tiny clearing among the trees. The warrior woman pushes Cedar onto the ground.
“I have been ordered to find you,” the warrior says.
“What do they want with me?” Cedar meets her eyes.
“A musical instrument was found in your winter residence.”
“So they plan to hand me over to Koshluk?”
“Perhaps. Others want to use you to persuade Ash to do what they want.”
“Ash won’t betray who he is, what he believes in, for me. I wouldn’t care for a man who would.”
“I admire that.”
Cedar is not sure what to make of this woman. She stands up and faces the warrior. “What is your opinion of Prince Ash?”
“He will make a better king than his brother would have. Though it will come at a great personal cost.”
“He will accept the cost,” Cedar says.
“It will come at a cost to all who are close to him as well.”
“I accept the cost.” Cedar catches a glimpse of something moving.
A figure retreats from a particularly large tree that had obscured him from view. How long had Finch been waiting there, and why he is leaving?
The warrior reads her mind. “He has been there long enough to decide you are in good hands. Do you trust his judgment?”
Cedar raises her chin. “Yes.”
“In all honesty, it would be a relief to be rid of him. He has seen more than anyone what I am capable of,” the warrior says.
This woman could end her life with her bare hands, and Cedar knows that. Yet her main concern right now is Finch.
What has this warrior woman, and Finch for that matter, had to do?
“Finch is not one to judge,” Cedar says.
The warrior gives a harsh laugh. “No. He is a dangerous man himself.”
“And a good one.”
The warrior paces, one hand on the hilt of the dagger in her belt. “It is better he leaves us. He is right to trust you to me, especially with so many of his enemies near. Jasper had friends in powerful places. You will need my help if you intend to evade capture.”
This warrior woman is on her side? Sensing her hesitation, the warrior comes to a stop in front of her.
“I am Cypress.”
The name suits her – tall and strong.
“What is your plan?” Cypress says.
“There is something I must retrieve before going to Sapphire City. From there, I go to the Palace of Rubies.” Cedar had not meant to reveal this last plan. Until that moment, going to the Palace of Rubies had been an unspoken wish. It seems achievable if Cypress is willing to help her.
“We will need to get you across the river, I presume,” Cypress says. “Where do you need to go from there?”
“I buried something, away from the cabin.”
“Good. They aren’t watching the other side as closely as this one, so once you have what you need, we will carry a boat a couple of miles through the forest, then take the river road the rest of the way to Sapphire City.”
“Why are you coming with me?”
“You wouldn’t get past the city gates without me. The city is swarming with those who have no qualms about making an enemy of someone as inconsequential as yourself, in exchange for the promised paycheck and gratitude from the King.”
Does the Governor fall into this category? What choice does she have? Cypress had not answered her question, but Cedar decides against asking a second time.
“I hid a boat some miles south of the cabin in the forest. If it is still there, we can take that one,” Cedar says.
“Good. Also, I’ll take your case with me now. You won’t get it across the river when I come for you later.” Cypress nods towards the instrument, concealed in the bulky case.
There will be no turning back once she hands it over to Cypress.
She hesitates. “Please, do not open it. I will show you, but not yet.”
Cypress tilts her head, considering her. “Is it something that could get us in trouble?”
“Yes,” Cedar says.
“I won’t look. But you will show me later.”